Large quantities of line or strands of material are presently being fabricated and distributed to a wide variety of industries. By way of example, the fishing industry requires large quantity of monofilament fishing line on a daily basis. Such fishing line may have diameters of one-eighth inch and be of lengths in excess of one mile weighing fifty or more pounds. The industry would like to purchase line in packages which contain long, continuous lengths of such line.
Current packaging for fishing line is normally in a large unsupported coil with strings or tie wraps to keep the line from becoming entangled during shipment and use. A problem arises when the customer wants to unwind the coil for use or for subsequently respooling of the line. The customer must either make a mandrel or some sort of fixture to support the line during unwinding. If this is not done and the coil is unwound, a twist is imparted in the line for each revolution of the coil. Such a twist is undesirable since it causes tangling during further use of the line. What the market prefers is to purchase the product already wound on a spool. Such an arrangement is desirable for shipping, storage and unwinding. Unfortunately, such is very costly. Known spools also require large storage space prior to initial line winding. They are also bulky and expensive to ship empty when returning the spool to the manufacturer.
What is desired is a method and apparatus for winding line in an organized manner on a device which will support the line for shipment and which will support the line on an axle during unreeling. Further, a preferred apparatus must be inexpensive, compact, lightweight and reusable.
Various approaches are disclosed in the literature to improve the efficiency of winding and reeling line for use by industry. By way of example, note U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,086 to Brimmeier and U.S. Pat. No. 4,192,473 to Wellman. According to those disclosures, a simplified reel is fabricated of component elements which, in theory, might be disassembled for constituting a relatively flat package for returning the reel to the manufacturer after use. The devices disclosed by these patents, however, do not employ a demountable reel for winding and dispensing the line.
In U.S. Pat. No. 1,977,668 to Dallas, line is wound onto a mandrel. Thereafter, the mandrel is collapsed so that the wound material may be removed. During shipment, there is no structure for supporting the wound line from the interior whereby it may be mounted on a spindle for subsequent unreeling. Similar to Dallas, U.S. Pat. No. 1,317,500 to Holmquist and U.S. Pat. No. 1,414,380 to Sommer also disclose mechanisms upon which line material may be wound and, whereafter, the mechanism may be collapsed so that the unsupported wound material may be shipped. Kinnicut in U.S. Pat. No. 3,861,615 discloses mechanisms for reeling line to generate a coil. According to the Kinnicut disclosure, however, the wound line is then provided with an interior brace to support the coil during shipment.
Lastly, U.S. Pat. No. 2,019,857 to Hoover discloses a tape winding reel wherein the wound line for winding a coil of material within the container, removably mounted about a reel, in such a configuration that the center portion of the coil is unwound first with the unwinding proceeding outward from the center.